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South Korea's Agricultural Exports Rise 7.9 per cent in November

SOUTH KOREA - South Korea's exports of food and agricultural products increased significantly last month on growing shipments to Russia and Asian countries, the government said Tuesday, 11 December.

The country shipped US$740 million worth of farm products in November, up 7.9 per cent from the same month last year, according to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The November figure also compares with $670 million tallied in the previous month, reports YonhapNewsAgency.

"Exports to Russia and the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) showed large increases," the ministry said in a press release.

Shipments to Russia jumped 30.3 per cent on-year to $23.5 million last month with exports to the 10 member countries of ASEAN surging 25.3 per cent to $99.7 million.

Japan continued to be the world's largest importer of South Korean farm products, purchasing $227 million worth of goods from South Korea in November. The figure represents a 4.8 per cent increase from the same period in 2011.

Exports to China, on the other hand, dropped 6.7 per cent on-year to $125.8 million.

By product, shipments of processed foodstuff hiked 11.3 per cent on-year last month with those of fresh foodstuff, such as vegetables, and fisheries products also growing 4.3 per cent and 3.2 per cent, respectively, from a year earlier.

The country's farm exports in the first 11 months of the year came to $7.29 billion, growing 5.1 per cent from the same period last year but falling far short of the ministry's $10-billion target for the whole of 2012.

"The ministry plans to focus all its efforts on marketing and sales promotion in countries with growing imports from South Korea, such as the ASEAN countries, and further remove any obstacles to exports to help increase exports," it said.